Organizers Chris Barber and Brigitte Belton said they connected on TikTok and sprouted an idea to organize a protest against federal COVID-19 vaccine mandates for cross-border truck drivers
OTTAWA — The "Freedom Convoy" protest that gridlocked downtown Ottawa for weeks last winter was a leaderless movement that saw power struggles among its key organizers, a public inquiry heard Tuesday. The two assembled a loose group of core organizers, including controversial figure Pat King, and within two weeks, thousands of trucks were wheeling towards Ottawa. It "exploded overnight," Belton said.
The public viewing gallery was lively Tuesday, with Justice Paul Rouleau threatening to close proceedings off from in-person spectators if they wouldn't agree to treat the inquiry like a courtroom. It was clear that Belton, too, saw tensions among the organizers. In a TikTok video shown to the commission, she raised questions about how Lich intended to spend some of the millions of dollars crowdsourced for the effort. Lich is expected to testify later this week.
He said he didn't even read the group's "memorandum of understanding," which demanded that the Senate and Governor General force Trudeau and provinces to eliminate all COVID-19 restrictions, and it wasn't part of his group's motivations. Early on, after working all day to clear a lane on Kent Street, an artery that runs north to Parliament from Ottawa's central highway, he said he came back to find it "completely plugged" the next morning.
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